Fire brigade - road closure won’t stop us

FIRE bosses in Wigan have insisted a controversial road closure will not affect emergency response times.

Wigan brigade chief Steve Sheridan spoke out after a fire engine was forced to take a diversion on its way to an incident in Ashton because of the closure to Bryn Road.

But Mr Sheridan has assured residents that precautionary measures have been taken in order to maintain efficient services.

He said: “We have put contingencies in place to ensure services are running as usual. We performed risk assessments and looked at the routes around Bryn Road, prior to its closure, to see what problems it could have caused.

“In light of this we have highlighted all of the alternative nearby roads which fire crews can use in the case of an emergency.

“In this particular incident, when the crews were attempting to get to Heath Road, it still only took crews eight minutes to arrive at the destination.

“We take each turn out very seriously and we are more than happy that we will still get to the destination regardless of the road closure.”

The road is due to be closed throughout summer in response to work being conducted by Network Rail.